Cut-off times

A cut-off time is the deadline after which a bank or Clearing and Settlement Mechanism (CSM) will no longer process a payment file for the current date. Files received after this threshold may be rejected or rescheduled for the following business day.

Cut-off times are configured within Mambu Payments for each specific scheme. In the case of a fully managed bank integration, these times are set according to the partner bank's requirements. These limits are hardcoded to ensure scheme compliance and cannot be overwritten by the customer.

Example: The STEP2 SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) final same-day cut-off is 14:30 CET. Any payment file received by STEP2 after this time will be processed on the next business day.

Cut-off time and value date

Mambu Payments determines the value date at the moment the payment file is generated:

• Corporate or Indirect Connectivity: the value date is set to the current date. It is the responsibility of the sponsor bank to adjust the value date if a payment is rescheduled after the cut-off.
• Direct Connectivity to the scheme: Mambu Payments automatically sets the value date to the current or next business day, excluding weekends and bank holidays, depending on whether the file is generated before or after the designated cut-off time.

Batching rules

A batching rule defines the specific time windows and frequencies used by Mambu Payments to transmit payment files to a bank or CSM. These rules are built to align with the payment scheme’s specific requirements, including:

• Operating Hours: Whether the scheme is 24/7 or has specific business days and hours.
• Batch Composition: Whether a file contains multiple payments (batched) or a single payment (single-item batch).
• Message Mixing: Whether different ISO 20022 message types can be combined in a single file.
• Capacity Limits: Maximum number of payments per file, maximum file size, or daily file transmission limits.

While Instant Payments are transmitted by Mambu Payments immediately, batching rules for other schemes are generally configured to mirror scheme or bank operating hours. However, Mambu Payments can customise these rules to accommodate a customer's specific operational constraints.

Example of batching rule: Batch payments and transmit SCT pacs.008 messages every 15 minutes, Monday through Friday, from 7:00 to 16:00 CET